Migrant sisters, keep the flame alive; break the chains of our oppression! IMA Statement in commemoration of International Women’s Day 2021

Today is glorious. Today, the International Migrants Alliance, together with our sisters and brothers across the globe, celebrate International Working Women's Day.

Let us keep to our hearts the pain and suffering of those working women who came before us, those who toiled in the factories, seas and farms; those made marginal in society because of their gender; those flogged with abuse behind closed doors; those who were displaced from their own homeland and to those who gave their lastbreath fighting for the cause of women. These are the women who voiced “No!” and rose up, clasping each other’s palms, raising to the horizon their collective struggle against oppression and oppressors.

What our sisters fought for more than 100 years ago remains. The times have changed, but the chains of our oppression remain.

Working women suffer in all aspects of our lives, our presence is invisible and our voices are unheard.

Women migrants suffer exploitation, trafficking, low wages and precarious work. In foreign countries, we receive even less than what the lowest local worker receives, with even less security, and vulnerable to be undocumented migrants.

Our predicament as migrant workers places us in many dangerous work. The abusive managers in garment factories, hurling verbal abuse and inflicting sexual abuse; the physical and psychological violence inflicted on domestic workers, who are forced to stay in their employers’ homes; the Damocles’ sword of deportation for those without documents, living in daily fear. The pandemic has imposed even greater vexations. Excluded from health care, and the uncertainties of access to vaccines, migrants and refugees are living with fear contracting the virus.

But like our sisters before, we will face these hurdles with heads held high. Women migrants, together with other working women, will continue what our sisters a century ago have started. We will fight against economic abuse, societal exclusion and violence in our workplaces and homes.

To our sisters and brothers in the struggle, we are here!

For reference: Eni Lestari, IMA chairperson